New Kings GM Says Math and Basketball Go Well Together

The Sacramento Kings have hired a new general manager to oversee the team’s revival after seven straight losing seasons. New GM Pete D’Alessandro says the Kings will be on the cutting edge of evaluating player performance.

Pete D’Alessandro says the coaching and front office staff will follow the lead of teams in Denver and San Antonio that use statistics called “analytics” to help evaluate player performance:

“With a (ownership) group that is so technologically advanced and on the forefront of things that I can’t help but think we’ll be one of those teams. And we talked quite a bit about that before and I think we’ll work as a group to put those right people in.”

The new GM says he and new Head Coach Michael Malone will evaluate player performance together. So far, he likes the talent on the team:

“I do think it’s there and I think in the second half of the (2012-13) season, you saw a lot of that. With that said, I do have a lot of work. I have a lot of agents to call. I have to sit down with these players. And Michael and I will do that together.”

NBA.com writer Scott Howard-Cooper says the new GM’s focus on numbers is part of a growing trend.

“You see more and more franchises that not only rely on it, but come close to swearing by it.”

New team majority owner Vivek Ranadive says D’Alessandro was a long-shot pick, before the candidate presented short and long-range plans for the club.

“If a good chess player thinks two moves ahead, in Pete, we have a guy who can think four moves ahead.”

D’Alessandro has worked as a political campaign advisor, player agent and an upper-level assistant on two NBA teams. But he has not been a general manager before. NBA.com's Howard-Cooper says without a track record, it’s impossible to predict how the new GM will do:

“We do know that he’s worked for some people that have been very good and have had success and that are very sharp and if those people hired him, I think that’s a good sign about what kind of future he has.”

D’Alessandro worked as a player agent beginning in 1997 before becoming an assistant general manager in 2004 with the Golden State Warriors. For the past three years, he worked for the Denver Nuggets, where he focused on free agent and trade negotiations and salary cap management.